MICHAEL P. GAGE
APRIL 19, 1969
Michael P. Gage, 26, was found dead at 6:15 yesterday morning in the cab of a pickup truck at his parents’ home, 2413 13th Ave. Officials termed the death a suicide by asphyxiation.
Gage’s body was discovered by his sister, Patricia, 19, who told police that she awoke and found her brother’s room empty. She then noticed that his Chevrolet pickup was not parked at its usual spot in front of the house and looked out the back. The truck was parked behind the house with a piece of plastic, of the type used by laundries and dry cleaners to protect clothing, taped along the left side leading from the exhaust pipe to the wing window.
Miss Gage ran out and discovered that the engine of the pickup was still running. She shut off the ignition before crying out at the discovery of her brother’s body. Her cries aroused a neighbor, Mrs. H. F. Buschman, who called police.
Officers reported that the body was lying in the seat covered with a blanket and with the head propped on a pillow, as if in normal sleep. The family physician said that death had occurred from six to eight hours before discovery.
Miss Gage said that Michael had returned home about 9 the previous evening, and that they had talked lightly about his not being employed at the present time and about the possibilities of his returning to school, before she retired at 10.
She said that the two of them were living alone at their parents’ home since the transfer of their father, Orland F. Gage, to South America in March. The elder Gages are residing at Tumaco, Colombia, where he is employed as a PFI executive. He formerly worked at the Lewiston mill.
Reports stated that Gage left a note on a clipboard in the living room of the house, but police would not reveal the contents of the note.
Gage was born Jan. 17, 1943, at Moscow. He later moved to Lewiston with his parents and was a 1961 graduate of Lewiston High School. He was a communicant of Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Church, and had entered the seminary at St. Martin’s College at Olympia in 1963. He left St. Martin’s in 1964 and worked for a time for a San Francisco optical company before returning to Lewiston in 1965, when he went to work for PFI as a laboratory technician. He resigned from that position about two weeks ago.
During the 1967-68 school year he attended Lewis-Clark Normal School where he was a 4.0 (perfect grades) student. He was also a member of a National Guard unit at Lewiston.
Survivors include the parents and the sister, at home, grandparents Mr. and Mrs. Ray Nolan, Lewiston, and Mr. and Mrs. Ora Gage, Princeton, Idaho.
The body is at Vassar-Rawls Funeral Home.